Consider the current issues occuring globally, Does Persepolis change your perspective your perspective on any aaspect of these debates

For the past two weeks, in the Global Citizens stream of the CAP program I am registered in at UBC, I have explored ‘Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi in detail with my professor and my group in my ASTU course, a graphic narrative written by Marjane Satrapi describing her experiences growing up throughout the fall of the 2500 year old Persian empire and the increasingly changing society of revolutionary Iran, till her departure from Iran to study in Austria. In this course, one of the most interesting questions raised by far was ‘What is the difference between “memory” and “history”. Memory is something which is more personal, and tries to give details that a person is aware of through senses and feelings while history gives only a general briefing of a situation, being objective and specific in times, places and dates without really putting much of personal feelings in question. As a global citizen in the CAP program, examining the writing of national memory in this ASTU course, determining the difference was by far one of the most important areas in which to explore works such as those by Satrapi, and from this experience understanding this through persepolis has not only increased my understanding of this difference, but has also enabled me to change my view of many standing current issues, of which I have personally previously tried to understand and discuss about throughout my experiences in MUNing in high school, where I find parallels between the feelings and memories conveyed in Persepolis and what is actually happening in the world right now..

Indeed, by comparing the circumstances mentioned in Persepolis to something current such as the Syrian Civil War and Refugee Crisis right now, having watched the fall of Syria into chaos and further oppression, and war, and the subsequent refugee crisis, one would realize that the history that the news reports and documentaries have given us, are simply not enough, and that we need more memories to convey the horrors and feelings of victims to the world. We need more memories because people begin to fail to show empathy to the refugees and the suffering from situations such as the Syrian Civil War, standing by and do nothing to help the suffering and the refugees, sometimes even resorting to hostile propaganda and violence against refugees through stereotypes without actually trying to understand them. Thus, the world needs more Satrapis and Persepolises.

First of all, throughout the first few classes of ASTU we have been taught the importance of considering genre when it comes to reading and writing in general, genre in that one should consider not only the form of the  but also the situation, the audience, and the purpose in which the work is being addressed to, such that establishes it as a genre. The introduction of Persepolis mentioned the very purpose of why it was written, as Satrapi believed’ that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists.’ and that she doesn’t ‘want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten’, establishing its genre as a graphic narrative attempting to  address Western stereotypes and misconceptions about the so called axis of evil in the Middle East, especially in regards to Iran, where she comes from. Many of these misconceptions and stereotypes which remain similar to those of how some in the western world view refugees from Syria with suspicion and skepticism. Given how Persepolis has come to become a work of literature that has been explored, and even studied by prominent academics, Persepolis has changed my view in that such narratives can indeed be useful in trying to reverse stereotypes made against certain peoples, in that they can show the human nature side of those ‘who are not us’.

Secondly, we can see that Persepolis has inadverntly, through Marji’s growing up in revolutionary Iran and up to the Iraq-Iranian War, in a situation that is unique to her, where she grows up in a rather affluent family who has a maid and cardillac, that many issues have been addressed and mentioned throughout Persepolis, such as how the issue of nationalism continues to drive people against each other, as Marji blamed historical hatred of how ‘the Arabs never liked the Persians’, and how they attacked the Iranians ‘1400 years ago’ and ‘forced their religion on’ them, in page 81 shows the increasing nationalism shown in nations such as China; how her cousin Shahab, serving in the army, as mentioned in page 101, stated how the poor kids become attracted to joining the army as child soldiers with the promise of paradise through the issuing of cheap plastic gold keys, who had little better fate than being sent to explode in the minefields, whilst richer people such as her were wearing necklaces without being aware to the violence in the Iran-Iraq War, shows the issue of child soldiers that are also prevalent in places like Africa and by organizations like ISIS, where the latter also indoctrinates children to its propaganda in a format not completely different from the methods mentioned in page 101, how people continue to suffer from the trauma from war, such as when Marji noticed the death of Neda during a bombing in the Iran-Iraq War in page 142, as Marjane narrated how ‘No scream in the world could have relieved my suffering and my anger’, continues to reflect how people continue to suffer in the shadow of war. Even though I have increased my understanding of these world issues through my participations of MUNs, or the watching of documentaries, none of the above would have allowed me to understand the emotions or feelings conveyed through these events as well as what I have read from Persepolis. When discussing these global issues in MUNs, I often resort to the historical, the official accounts of government entities, or the version of events mentioned by the news, which often lack the emotions acutely felt by people affected by these issues, or fail to mention the normality of life of people, as news would often focus on the unique and the special. Though documentaries and reports such as the report ‘Srebrenica’ written by the NIOD, or the Human Rights Watch report of the Srebrenica Massacre often involve the interviewing of witnesses, or people who were at the scene, these often pertain to the only the actual event, and questions for the most time only serve a specific objective purpose, and fail to truly relay the changing emotions and feelings of the people involved, such as the complexity of how Marji sees heroes throughout Persepolis, such as the martyred soldiers in page 102, or the political prisoners in pages 47 and 51, or how the revolution and the war and the personal loss of her Uncle Anoosh sort of signalled in the loss of Marji’s childhood innocent and leading to her growing up in ‘The Trip’ These serve to influence me, and allow me to recognize the importance of memories aside form history from understanding how historical events make an impact on people, in which most conventional media have overlooked.

All in all, Persepolis has indeed changed my worldview of many current affairs, and changed how I viewed memories and their importance in allowing people to effectively understand history, to have empathy and to make effective changes to it. Indeed, the world needs more Satrapis and Persepolises.